“LeBron won’t win another title”
The Lakers plan that absolutely failed
04/04/2022 11:13 am
Ahead of the NBA season, LeBron James is said to be making waves again with an all-star team at the Los Angeles Lakers. Statistically, James is having a very good season, but injuries and tired old men thwart the plan – the playoffs are a long way off.
“I’m officially out for the rest of the season,” wrote NBA superstar LeBron James on Twitter three days ago. “See you in the fall.” What was intended as an April Fool’s joke didn’t sit well with some Los Angeles Lakers fans. Finally they have the feeling that the playing time is indeed in the bucket – and the best player on their team is more and more “out” because James is more and more injured.
And a LeBron James in jean shorts and a gray hoodie is pretty much worthless to the Los Angeles Lakers. At the penultimate home game of the record champions in the NBA main round, the 37-year-old superstar was again in civilian clothes on the sidelines. The ankle. But even if James had been able to play in the 118:129 against the Denver Nuggets on Sunday – at the end of this bankruptcy, bad luck and breakdown season of the glittering club from the entertainment metropolis in California, almost certainly nothing would have changed: If it was in the Playoffs get down to business, the record champion is not there. And neither does the most important basketball player in the league.
James recently became the second best pitcher in league history and is currently the top scorer of the season. He plays – statistically – better than he has for a long time. And yet it’s not enough: also because the NBA superstar can no longer lead his team like a few years ago. However, with four games remaining in the regular season, the Lakers still need to win three times more than the San Antonio Spurs to climb tenth place and qualify for the play-in.
“LeBron will not win another NBA title”
If the Californians even want that. Some pundits say the Lakers don’t want to go back to the playoffs at all to avoid taking a bad beating and to recover from their broken and old bodies (LA has the oldest team in the league with an average of nearly 31 years). . Twelve bankruptcies with only four wins have hailed in the past 16 games. “The Lakers’ season is over,” predicted ESPN expert Stephen A. Smith recently and went one step further: “LeBron will not win another NBA title.”
Because the Spurs beat the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday, the situation is even worse than on Friday, when only two wins had to be made up. And even then James said after the loss to the New Orleans Pelicans: “The overall picture is that it was pretty much a must-win for us – and we didn’t get the job done.”
The Lakers were so confident going into the season – after all, the roster sounded like that of an All-Star game. LeBron James and Anthony Davis were already there, followed by Carmelo Anthony and, supposedly the most important newcomer, Russell Westbrook. Westbrook was to become the engine of a well-running offensive machine. “We look really good on paper,” Davis said after the Nuggets’ defeat. “But we didn’t have a chance to show that.”
The Lakers have 78 games behind them. There was a new starting line-up 39 times. James, Davis and Westbrook together? The fans only saw it 21 times. Sometimes Davis was injured, sometimes James, sometimes both, Davis has been back for two games, but James is not. “What could we have been if we had all been healthy?” Davis asked the journalists on Sunday.
Westbrook has passed its peak
The many injuries are certainly the main reason for the blatant descent from the title candidate to the middle class team. On the other hand, they are not the only explanation – too many mistakes were made by the healthy players, too many victories were carelessly given away. Davis, who two years ago was still considered one of the top five players in the NBA, is no longer as dominant and successful as he was then. And Westbrook is far from the achiever you’d want him to be. The former triple-doubles machine has passed its prime and lost its explosiveness and can neither acknowledge its decline nor embrace the Lakers’ game system, which is no longer tailored to them.
There are still four games of hope left. On Tuesday with the Phoenix Suns, the best team in the league. Then with the Golden State Warriors, who still have to do without Stephen Curry, but have overcome their mini-crisis with two wins in a row. Then the Oklahoma City Thunder come to the last home game of the main round. Finally, on April 10: The nuggets again.
Should James appear in at least two games and thus reach 70 percent of the season, he at least still has a chance of a personal title: as the league’s top scorer. It would be the second time in his career – but in view of the overall situation only a very, very small consolation.